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Saving energy successfully

With staff and students motivated to use energy resources wisely and through a variety of energy saving programs, the University has successfully reduced its energy footprint.

Initiative 1000: "Switch Smart"

In the 2014/2015 fall semester, the University launched Initiative 1000 with the goal of saving 1,000 megawatt hours of electricity in six months. The Initiative met the goal. That led to a repeat for the 2015/2016 fall semester, with another 1,000 megawatt hours savings goal and an added 1,000 megawatt hours of saved heat. These ambitious goals were also achieved.

Here are some of the publicized electricity-saving tips:

Turn out the lights

Shut down the PC after use

Turn off the experiment after ending the test series

Use power strips with on/off switches

And here are a few of the heat-saving tips:

Turn down the heat

Report defective radiators

Use purge ventilation instead of constant ventilation

Keep office doors closed; hallways typically are not heated to the same degree

Initiative 1000

Video clip: Initiative 1000 - Saving energy made simple

Source: YouTube

Project "Change": Be energy-conscious

The engergy-saving initiative "Change - be energy-conscious" launched by Energy Management in the Engineering and Construction Division is aimed at University of Stuttgart students and staff members. With helpful tips that are easy to implement and easily fit into daily life, heating energy use was to be reduced by up to nine percent and electricity use was to be reduced by up to 18 percent.

The Project Change was a cross-disciplinary collaborative project that ran from 2008 to 2011 as part of the “From knowledge to action – new paths to sustainable consumption” socio-ecological research program under the aegis of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research.

The University of Stuttgart for the first time was able to save 10% heat energy during the first year. The projected goal for electricity saving was not achieved at the time.

Saving energy with energy performance contracts

In recent years, the University’s Energy Management office entered into several energy-saving performance contracts whose object was, among others, rehabbing many of our ventilation systems and their controls. To date, nine contracts have been let, of which four have been successfully completed. With the current contracts involving total investments of more than 13 million euro, the University is saving roughly 2.8 million euro annually in energy costs, (savings which, incidentally, are used to repay the contract borrowings.) That represents approximately 30% savings on heating or cooling and 6% electricity savings.All our active contracts to date have achieved their objectives; in fact, they bettered the contractual forecasts by some 10% on average.